


Black Widow

by deslea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fic, Resurrection Stone, love-hate relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 18:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7945147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodolphus finds the Resurrection Stone and brings back his none-too-willing wife. After all, if he'd had any sort of a self-preserving instinct, he'd never have married her to start with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Widow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HP Dark Arts Back To School fest on LiveJournal, for _melodic_. The prompt was, _The Resurrection Stone never leads to a happy ending, but when you're desperate enough to see someone again, you'll take them however they come._ However, this one is nowhere near as dark and angsty as the prompt might suggest.

i. 

He stumbles into the Forbidden Forest, grieving and shocked.

He had stayed long enough to watch Bella fall, long enough to hear the Dark Lord's scream. He hadn't stayed to watch the Dark Lord fall in turn. He didn't need to. It was there in that scream, there in the welling gleam in the eyes of their opponents. It was in the rise of their chins, the broadening of chests, the raising of wands. Rodolphus has won many a battle, and he knows well the smell of blood just before the final strike. Only this time, the blood is theirs.

_Everything he loves is gone._

He will probably escape with his life and liberty now - he left early enough to do so - but it hardly matters. There is nothing to live for now.

He reaches the clearing where they had waited out their vigil, waiting for the boy's surrender. There is a portkey there, and that is as sensible an exit as any. He is in no mental state to Apparate.

He wipes his eyes on his sleeve, blows his nose. He does it loudly, like a pitiful little child. Bella would be appalled.

As if to underline the point, he trips on a _bloody_ tree root, landing heavily with his face in the dirt. Somewhere, he thinks, Bella is laughing. She'd help him up afterwards, true, but she'd mock him first. Her better nature was only ever an afterthought.

At this thought, he summons a watery grin that turns to a sob. Gropes on the ground for purchase and drags himself up. His hand closes on something small. 

He inspects his find. It is a gemstone, black in colour, cut to fit a ring. It reminds him of the wedding ring he'd given Bella. Black diamonds. He'd insisted. He'd known her well enough even then to know she'd only wear it if it went with her dress.

Looking at the stone, he feels an unwelcome lump in his throat. "Oh, Bella," he sighs.

"What the hell did you have to go and do _that_ for?" a familiar voice chides, and suddenly there is something to live for after all.

 

ii.

"You're seriously going to keep me here? For how long?"

Bella's ghost has been a constant companion for two days. Long enough to become some sort of pseudo-normal. Long enough to irritate the fuck out of him, actually. But not long enough for him to wish her gone. Not by a long shot.

They are in Spain, far from the arm of the Ministry. He has only his wand and the clothes on his back and the stone that he has tentatively identified as the fabled Resurrection Stone. Well, Dumbledore had the Elder Wand, so he supposes it isn't too surprising that the Order had the stone.

He knows the story. The stone was used to resurrect a loved one, but the loved one was not happy to be back.

Neither is Bella.

"Rodolphus, I _demand_ that you release me _right now._ My place is with the Dark Lord."

He smirks a little at that. "I doubt you want to go wherever _he's_ going." He may have believed utterly in the Dark Lord's purpose, but he is under no illusions about his nature.

"I don't care!" she says passionately. "I would follow him into hell!"

Well, yes. No surprises there.

He says mildly, "I shared you with him in life, Bella. Don't think I'm going to share you now."

It dawns on him that for the very first time in their marriage, he finally has her all to himself, and there is nothing either she or _he_ can do about it.

If he'd only known it before, he'd have killed the pair of them years ago.

 

iii.

The fabled loved one had withered under the weight of her unwanted ghostly life.

Bella doesn't. She's like a weathered old tree that gets harder and drier in the elements, but she doesn't wither. She isn't built that way. She's built to keep on standing, digging her gnarled roots further and further into the ground just to bloody spite it, and she'll keep on standing for a thousand years, until every remnant of what she despises is gone.

He supposes he fits squarely into that category now, and if he were a better man, he would care.

He doesn't.

She may despise him, but she's pretty much stuck with him, and he enjoys having her there. Enjoys sparring with her. Enjoys her flint-edged humour. Even enjoys her sniping. He gives as good as she does, after all. She may be there under sufferance, but to varying degrees, she always was.

And the sex is glorious.

They're hampered by her lack of a body, but they make do. A hooker with a passable likeness, a little _Imperio_ from Bella, and suddenly it's like fucking her all over again. Hands that stroke him where and how _she_ did. Cries at the same time, the same pitch. In a dimly-lit room, it's close enough.

Not that Bella gets much out of it, he supposes, and if he were a better man, he would care.

He doesn't.

 

iv.

"So when the hell _are_ going to release me, Rodolphus? Am I going to have to wait until you die?"

He smirks a little at that. "Well, you _did_ promise _until death do us part,_ Bella. The vows were silent about whose."

"Ugh," she says in disgust. "I suppose you're going to follow me to hell, as well."

"I wasn't actively trying to get there, but it's the most likely outcome, yes." His smirk widens. "It will be you, me, and the Dark Lord all over again. Won't that be fun?"

Her eyes narrow. "You know this just makes me want to find a way to hasten your demise."

He snorts. One way or another, she was always going to kill him. This is just a new twist on an old tale. It's only the sheerest dumb luck that he outlived her in the first place. And after all, if he'd had any sort of a self-preserving instinct, he'd never have married her to start with. You don't marry a black widow and expect to get out alive.

As long as he still has her, he doesn't care too much whether it's in life or death. So let her try. Whether she succeeds or fails, it will be entertaining to watch.

He says only, "I'd expect nothing less."

 

v.

She does find a way, in the end. He isn't surprised.

One of the hookers does it under _Imperio._ He's actually rather impressed that she lets him come first. Maybe she does love him, deep down, after all.

_Maybe._

"Well done," he says as their spirits begin to leave the only world he's known. "Happy now?"

"Quite," she smirks.

There is something about that smirk that he very much dislikes.

"Don't worry, Rod," she says as he feels a _tug_. Suddenly his ascent is slower than hers. "It's not forever. Just a decade or two."

"You - wait. What?"

Bella wags her finger at him. "You need to give her just as many orgasms as I gave you, though. She won't let you go until you do."

Horror settles over him as realisation dawns. "The hooker has the stone," he whispers. 

Bella's smirk broadens. It is the smirk of a rather mean wife who laughs at her fallen husband, before grudgingly helping him up.

After a decade or two.

He groans. "Oh, _fuck._ "

Her laughter echoes into the distance as she leaves him behind.

END


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